Olympic spirit cries out for Beijing in 2008

July 11, 2001|By David Greising.

The International Olympic Committee is one of those smug, self-aggrandizing pomposities that probably should be ignored. And yet here we are, wondering where the Sultans of Sweat will send the 2008 Summer Games when they vote on Friday.

In other words, McDonald's, Coca-Cola and the other Olympic sponsors will learn if Beijing, Toronto or Paris will get to serve as the best advertising backdrop that a $60 million sponsorship fee can buy.

The media guides say the Games are supposed to be about the athletes. The Olympic motto--citius, altius, fortius--expresses the focus on athletic achievement: faster, higher, stronger.

But such purist notions have gone the way of the three-legged race. Forget "citius, altius, fortius." The modern Olympic motto should read, "maior, peior, divitior."

That's "bigger, badder, richer" to us who prefer languages that people still speak.

The purely athletic part of the Games still can thrill. The competitors seem really committed to the original Olympic motto. Especially the ones who don't shoot steroids.

But the modern Olympics aren't truly about athletics any more than a Back Street Boys concert is about music. The Games are about packaging, branding and selling. They're an ever-expanding stage that shrinks the athletes as it grows.

That's why I get a kick out of this moralistic debate about whether China is worthy to host the 2008 Summer Games. It's as silly as checking church attendance when starting a poker game: Anyone who can feed the kitty can play.

And China can feed the kitty. The Chinese government is often brutal, but in the Olympics game it's the money that counts.

The Chinese can deliver the promised $2 billion of housing venues, $3.7 billion in traffic improvements, $800 million in health and communications upgrades and cleaner air too.

All that free spending, and not a cross word is said. Fully 95 percent of Chinese people support Beijing's Olympic bid. And the other 5 percent will be rounded up and sent to jail during the Games, so their opinions don't count.

The facts are that the Games would be a big boon to China. By hosting the Olympics, the government would force itself to deal with traffic gridlock in Beijing, a choking smog problem and out-of-date communications.

Beijing boosters say the government might become more tolerant to criticism and dissent. The thinking is that the games will expose the Chinese to international practices on free speech and will raise the stakes for any crackdowns.

This epidemic of hand-wringing over Beijing's Olympic bid says more about us than it does about the Chinese. It proves we're suckers for symbolism.

China's impending entry into the World Trade Organization is an event of huge material and political consequence. Yet the debate over who hosts the quadrennial Olympics track meet is getting almost as much ink and passion.

The fretting over a repeat of Hitler's abuse of the 1936 Berlin Olympics is paranoid and misses the point. Our government, our businesses and our people are drawing closer to China, not pulling further away.

I came away from a recent visit to Beijing convinced we can serve our interests best by deepening ties to China and raising the cost of mischief they might make.

"China is not only not our sworn enemy; it is our friend," fumes Chicago Stock Exchange President A.D. Frazier, who served as chief operating officer of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

"They want to showcase modern China to the world," Frazier continues. "You don't do that by showing off your prisons. You build new roads. You create new jobs. Most of China will be better off."

The Olympic movement would be better off too. Sponsors have gotten so used to running the games that many have lobbied against Beijing. They fear the half-day time shift is bad for business.

The Chinese have a motto for their Olympic bid: "New Beijing, New Olympics." Granting the Games to Beijing would bring back some of the old spirit to the Olympics--a spirit so old, it would seem new again.